Wednesday, 28 September 2011

'The Ring' (here and now)

(above: 'ohmygawd! can you like believe like this is the only spot in like my room where I like get decent like WiFi signal? I feel like I'm dying... like socially speaking. LMAO')

Last Friday I went to the pictures to see 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' on the silver screen. I don't care what the reviews and those cynical pricks called critics have said, written or dribbled about this film, but I found this to be one of the most confusing and most subtle of films I've ever seen in my miserable life. I tell you what - if it hadn't been a blatantly mainstream British multimillion production film but a b&w subtitled independent Iranian film, I would have walked out the room shaking my hand in the air in an onanistic manner. Because, ladies and gentlemen, when you enter a busy cinema room with a breathtakingly overpriced toffee popcorn packet in your hands and you have swallowed 40 minutes of adverts and trailers, the thing one least desires is have to think deeply throughout a film.

As you should probably know, I'm a pragmatic person and I do not only identify problems like a smug academic but I also provide solutions to such problems. Today's solution, even though it damages my principles and burns down my heart, has to be imported from the country founded by British expats across the Atlantic Ocean. In case you don't know which country I'm talking about, most likely because you schooled in America, it's precisely America. Who best to teach us how to think less or not to at all than the Americans?

Anyway, the process of dumbing down British cinema consists in copying American films and setting the plot in God's country. Everyone knows that copying is a very healthy activity for any culture - look at the Romans, for instance, they copied out 'Gladiator' and they didn't do that bad... For this reason, I want you to present you with the British adaptation of the American adaptation of the Japanese film 'The Ring'. In case you are not familiar with this feature picture, 'The Ring' is, in a nutshell, a horror film where the main character (Naomi Watts) gets to see a VHS tape at the end of which she receives a phone call where she is informed she is going to die in 7 days and left with the face of a blow-up doll.

A British adaptation would of course be sympathetic with the time and place shared by contemporary Britons, albeit it must be an exportable film. Out of interest, an 'exportable film' is a film that Americans may buy into and understand. Therefore, action should be set either in an aristocratic classist Britain (posh and all the rest) or in the East End of London (Cockneys, apples and pears and various other fruits as well). I'm going to choose a bit of both. I want this film to be directed by Guy Ritchie, so we can have a bit of his 'oi-oi-lads-Guy-woz-ere' trademark - I'm not implying all his films are the same, but they are... nor I am that he is not a Cockney, but he is trying so hard to be one. In terms of the cast, I was thinking of Stephen Fry. I acknowledge he is nowhere near to be a middle-aged blonde woman, but he is Stephen Fry, come on, it'll be funny at the very least.

As in Britain we don't want even hear about Stephen Fry being dead - indeed, not even in fiction, have a look at 'V for Vendetta' for instance - I was planning on slightly modifying the plot. Instead of killer VHS tape, I thought of a face-swapping and then killing VHS tape. I shall explain myself - Stephen Fry receives a call that in 7 days his face will be swapped by Jeremy Kyle's and then, and only then, he shall perish. The reason I'm doing this is because I want the film to be entertaining and enjoyable.

That's it for today. I know there are many other aspects in a film, but I'm a just bloody university student - so I need my daily booze/class B drugs dose to keep on this neurone-killing pace and thinking or writing aren't a full-on substitute to that.

THE WELSH PATIENT says: 'When I proposed to my wife, I gave her a vibrating ring instead of an actual ring. She left me, but she never gave me that ring back'

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Ken Follettwers

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My miserable life so far

You know what: paella, sangria, beach, sun and ¡olé! Before any questions: yes, I've been in major Spanish cities (Lloret de Mar, Platja d'Aro, Benidorm and Torremolinos). My hobbies? Bullfighting, having siesta, eating sweaty cheese and polygamy. I'll keep writing until everyone of you notice any satire in the text. My favourite music? Believe me, just crap music sung in Spanish, so you probably won't understand.